The Unknown Country
by Edward Carson
Summary: A little melancholy and tender one-shot of Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes on the brink of great changes in their lives. This was inspired by the Season 6 trailer scenes of Mr. Carson looking bereft. I mourn for him.


**Uncertainties**

For the first time in her life, she is apprehensive about the future.

What will it mean to be married?

She has overheard someone - Mr. Molesley, she thinks - saying, "They'll do well. They've lived and worked so closely together for so long, they'll have sorted all the difficult parts." Spoken like a man and someone with no experience with marriage, for what he has said isn't so. Not at all.

It's true that they've spent long days together and for years on end. And there is much that they do know of each other, being intelligent, observant people who have long cared for one another. They have a day-in-day-out understanding which is what Molesley, or whoever it was, has mistaken for a marriage-like communion. But there are more important things than knowing how much milk he likes in his tea, or the specifics of his daily schedule, or when he is best approached with a problem. These are surface details only, the sort that are learned quickly enough in the situation itself. No, it is the really vital things that cannot be anticipated because they must be experienced that are troubling her now.

Being married will put a premium on privacy. It is almost impossible to get a minute alone in the busy arena of the Downton Abbey servants' hall, even when you have your own office. But she has had the refuge of her own room to withdraw to at the end of a day. She hasn't shared a bedroom in decades, and never a bed. Their days will be different from now on and it may be that she will find all the solitude she likes when she no longer has a sitting room and the responsibilities of employment. But she knows she will not have her nights to order her thoughts and review her days, or to sing or cry herself to sleep as before. She will no longer be alone in the darkness. She understands that there are advantages to this, and possibly delights undreamed of, but she only knows from this vantage point what she is losing, having as yet no concrete appreciation for what she will gain.

Marriage means surrendering independence and this will be a challenge for her. Ever since she left her parents' home, she has stood on her own two feet. The decision for service over marriage was her own and it opened up for a her a life where she made choices with reference only to her own wishes. Means and opportunity have circumscribed those choices, but at the end of the day she has had no one else to thank or blame for the successes and failures. She is proud of herself and of the life she has made. This will change with marriage. They will consult on everything and she will not always get her way. She will have to learn to live with someone else's choices.

And she will no longer be independent in that most critical of areas - financial affairs. Without her job, she will have no income. Without savings, she has nothing to apply to their household expenses. The day she leaves Downton, she will become wholly dependent upon him to pay her bills and those of her sister. It was not what she anticipated and it is not something she wants. But it is the way things are and the way it must be. Where would she and her sister now be in this changing world without him? She is grateful, but it is costing her something that cannot be measured in sterling.

More difficult still, she will no longer be who she has been all her life. Elsie Hughes will cease to exist. She will become Mrs. Charles Carson, legally and socially. He will call her Elsie (she hopes!), so that that door, long closed with the distance and death of her family, will open again. And perhaps, after Downton, they will become less formal in their friendships and someone else - Mrs. Patmore maybe, _Beryl_ \- will also address her by her Christian name. But her surname will disappear forever. It is not only a tie to her past - to her family, and to Argyll, and to the world she left behind a long time ago - but also the anchor to her identity. For a quarter of a century, she has been Mrs. Hughes. And anyone who knows her knows that Mrs. Hughes is her own person. In marrying, she will be subsumed by him. This is very hard to swallow.

Then there is the reality that they will not only share a bedroom, but also a bed, and all that comes with it. They have known the intimacy of proximity, hardly ever more than twenty feet apart all day, and even less at night, separated in their beds only by a wall. And they have developed some level of intimacy of heart and mind, negotiating, arguing, planning together, over tea and sherry, in his pantry, or her sitting room, or at their corner of the servants' hall table. But true physical intimacy awaits them and it is both the least and the greatest challenge they face.

Since their engagement they have done no more than kiss and their efforts have barely scratched the surface of that particular pleasure. They have held hands and occasionally caressed each other's face. If they've put arms around the other they have done so only insofar as it was necessary to steady themselves as they kissed. Such tentative touches have always taken place on top of layers of clothing that prevented any meaningful contact. There has been no more than that. She has seen little of his body beyond his head and hands. That day at the beach was the exception, with his feet and legs beneath rolled up pants and forearms bared by rolled up sleeves on display. Apart from that, the only time she has seen him unbuttoned was when attending him in illness, and then it was only the small "v" of his chest revealed at the top of his pajamas. He has seen much less of her.

This is a door she has longed to open, wanting both to touch and be touched, see and be seen. But it will be difficult for them. Neither has shed clothing before another person in decades and they are both intensely private people. They have never discussed it, cannot talk about it. How are they ever to act on it?

And there is another aspect of intimacy. She is not accustomed to displaying her emotions. She has deep feelings, but has been schooled in restraint and she was always a good pupil. Will he expect her to open her heart, once they are married, as easily as he does? Will she disappoint him if she does not?

These are the hurdles they will have to face and she is uncertain.

 **The Unknown Country**

He is more apprehensive about the future than he has ever been. It has always been for him the "unknown country," and he is wary of it, relying on the past to keep him grounded. He has spent much of his life looking backward, seeking there comfort and stability. But now the past is receding more rapidly than ever before. As he stands on the edge of what will be, he is in mourning for what was.

Everything he knows is slipping away.

He has slept in the same bed in the same room for more than thirty years. The bedclothes made up with precision are comforting to his touch. But from tomorrow forward, and when they return from their wedding trip, he will sleep in a different bed, in a different room, in a different house. His heart aches at the prospect.

When he turned his back on the theatre so many years ago and returned to service, he embraced a life alone. And yet his great heart could not thrive without love and someone, something to love. Downton has been the love of his life, the house and the family within it. Every moment of every day he has dedicated himself to the care and nurturing of his Downton world, and now he is leaving it all behind him. It is like a dozen intimate deaths, all at the same time, and he is the chief mourner.

The immutability of the past has always been his consolation. It has already happened and it cannot change. But it has betrayed him in ways he is only now appreciating. It has given him a false sense of confidence. He has only ever been able to face the future while standing on the bedrock of the past. Now, as he faces the most dramatic changes of his life and when he needs more than ever the security of what has been, it is crumbling beneath his feet. He is not leaving Downton so much as Downton is leaving him. He will not be able to go back, not even to visit. He is too old to cut loose from all the moorings, but it was never his decision to make. He is a casualty in a war he has never known how to fight.

There is more than his heart at stake. The house and his place within it have defined him. He has been Mr. Carson, the butler of Downton Abbey, for so long that he does not know who he is beyond this role. Is there anything more to Charles Carson than the man who measures the spacing of the silver on the dinner table or rings the gong to announce the dressing hour? How will he fill the hours in a day without the multitude of tasks, large and small, that have been his daily regimen at Downton? Will he ever be as comfortable in his own home as he has been all his adult life in the home of someone else? He does not know the answer to any of these questions and the not-knowing gnaws at him.

And the past has betrayed him in another way. He knows and loves Mrs. Hughes. Mrs. Carson is something else. He is terrified of her. He has spent a quarter of a century perfecting a relationship that will be obsolete the moment the churchman pronounces them husband and wife. Then what?

He is about to become a husband and it is a role for which he is wholly unprepared. He doesn't know what a husband does. There is no job description, no training course, no senior incumbent with whom to serve an apprenticeship. Is he really going to have to make it up as he goes along? He is afraid of failure.

Some things never change. He can take solace in bills and taxes. He knows what to do with them. There is comfort in consistency, but even he recognizes how shallow _that_ pool is.

The unknown troubles him. They have spent so much time together, but always amidst the bustle of an active working environment. What will happen when they are alone in long days without others to manage, others to distract them from each other? Will he bore her? Will she tire of listening to him then? Will he have anything at all to say?

The only thing that he knows a husband does is fraught with even more complications. When they are married, they will share a room and a bed and their bodies. He is honest enough to admit that he is yearning for this. He has been celibate by force of circumstance, not absence of desire. But it appalls him to think that he brings nothing to this except hunger. The only advantage of age is experience and he cannot even claim that. Innocence might have some charm in youth, but it is pathetic in maturity. What will she expect of him? Will she be disappointed? And he has no idea what she thinks of this and cannot imagine any way of finding out. He wants this and he hopes she does, too, and that she does not find his desire off-putting. If they are not to be husband and wife in this way, why change the relationship at all?

He cannot go back. He is afraid to go forward. He is stalled in a no man's land of indecision. All he has ever wanted is the stability of the past and now, at the moment he is least able to do without it, it has abandoned him and he is bereft.

 **Anchors**

He is standing before the closed door of the room he has lived in for thirty odd years, staring at the hand-lettered slip of paper with his name on it that has staked this as his territory. _Mr. Carson_. Silently he thumbs it out of the holder. Mr. Carson will live here no more. He can't decide whether to crumple it up and toss it away as the scrap it is, or keep it as a memento of what he once was.

He hears the lock click on the door dividing the men's quarters from the women's, and out of the corner of his eye sees it pushing in. He does not need to look over. It must be her. No one else is allowed to open that door.

She has seen him through the glazed-over window of the door. Heard the movements in the room next door, seen the shadow of his distinctive profile through the glass, knows that he has taken the opportunity to pack his bag for tomorrow. She's feeling uncertain, knows that he's there, and wants to see him.

"Mr. Carson."

The second her eyes fall on him, everything changes for her. The way he is standing, the slump of his shoulders, the little slip of paper in his fingers - she takes it all in and her heart goes out to him.

"Oh, Charlie."

She goes to him and he turns into her. They don't so much fall into each other's arms as move together so closely that their bodies become one. She puts a hand to his cheek and he suddenly presses his face into her neck and she feels the wet warmth of his tears. They cannot stay here. She opens the door to his room and gently ushers him inside, closing the door after them. This is not permitted, but to hell with that. They will be married tomorrow and it is more important that he not be seen like this than that they are suspected of impropriety. And then she puts her arms around him and pulls him close and he almost crushes her, clinging to her as though she were his last hope on earth.

As she holds him, her uncertainties fall away. She has forgotten the critical element of all of this: she loves him. Names and dependence are realities for women in the world they live in and one of her strengths has always been her capacity to accept reality and get on with it. Anyone who really knows her will recognize the person she is, no matter what label she bears. Retirement and living together and negotiating space are not conditions she must accept, but new challenges that she will rise to as she has to job-related issues in the past. And it's not as if she's never confronted change before.

It's all going to be much harder on him. In this room where she has been with him only in illness, she grips him tightly, and murmurs soothing sounds in his ear, and absorbs his tears into the shoulder of her dress. She is confident he will thrive in marriage. It's getting him through leaving Downton that will be the hard part. She doesn't begrudge him one moment of his anguish. It's hard to say goodbye, all the more so when your heart and soul are invested to the extent that his are in Downton.

He is comforted by her nearness and his tears ebb, and his hold on her relaxes a little.

He is vulnerable and his usual reserves of self-control have been drained by the melancholy that swept over him as he packed his bag. They have never been this close before, never held each other so tightly. He is unaware until it happens that he has been so unguarded in his feelings. She must feel him. It drives all sorrow from his conscious mind as he is overtaken with shock and horror and fear that she will be repulsed by this evidence of his vulgar impulses. He lets go and tries to move back, tries to shift away the lower part of his body, which he has desperately pressed against her, making his unanticipated reaction apparent. It is not enough that the past has betrayed him; now his body must join in, too. He must distance himself from her.

She is only dimly aware of his discomfort because her own reaction to his arousal is a wave of relief. Here, finally, is evidence that beneath the starched layers of cloth and formality there is a man and that he is interested. Without hesitation, she slides her hands under his jacket, linking her fingers in the small of his back, and pulling him back against her.

She feels his resistance, knows that he is ashamed of his body's waywardness, fears her revulsion. It almost makes her laugh with delight. _Of course_ she knows how he is feeling. She _knows_ him. And not just in trivial and mundane things, but in many of those deeper aspects that bind two hearts together and make for true intimacy. There are still mysteries to fathom, and there will be questions and quandaries, and possibly some conflict over them, but there are also so many bridges between them that they will always find resolutions. And they will be lovers. How could she ever have doubted?

He cannot let go of his embarrassment that easily, but he does not try to pull away from her again. Although he is still discomfited by this bold and unauthorized announcement of his desire, her response is immensely gratifying. There is no ambiguity in her message. _She_ wants _him_ , too. His body has, inadvertently, made it possible for them to communicate clearly about that most difficult subject without having to find the words. They are both reassured.

"I've been foolish," he whispers in her ear, his voice slightly ragged. It is difficult to think past the physical pressure between them. "I've let myself fall prey to sentimentality."

"You're allowed to mourn your losses and worry about changes, Charlie. We all do. But you'll get through it." She can speak with confidence about all of this. Only a little while ago, she was herself beset by the anxieties of not-knowing.

"I forgot who I was," he admits softly, and the slight trembling in his voice suggests that he may still be unsure.

Hearing this, she withdraws her arms from his waist - he releases her only reluctantly, loathe to surrender their newfound intimacy - and reaches up to take his face in her hands. When he holds her in this way, his great hands can almost encompass her whole head. Her hands hardly span his cheeks.

"Let me tell you," she says, looking into those mesmerizing eyes that swirl with love and longing and still a hint of apprehension. "You're Mr. Carson, a man of dignity and honour. And tomorrow you'll be even more than that. You'll be _my_ Mr. Carson." And she stands on her toes and kisses him gently. "I've never loved anyone more."

He closes his eyes as her lips touch his and the tension that has gripped him since he'd started packing his case some time ago dissipates. When he opens his eyes again, he stares hard into her sparkling gaze and wonders how he has let himself be so overcome. Mrs. Carson does not seem so frightening now.

Her fingers close on his and she takes from him the little slip of paper with his name on it that he still holds there, tucking it away. She will find some appropriate place to put it in their new home, both as a reminder of what was and as a claim to what will be.

His arms still loosely around her, he marvels over how it has happened that he has been so blessed. Decades ago, spurned by love, he made the choice to live alone, thinking that he had had his chance and lost. How wrong he was. He has known love in different forms since then and now, as he stands on the brink of the greatest change in his life, he embraces the greatest love of his life. What can he not face with her by his side?

Nothing lasts forever, as Downton has shown. One day he and this lovely woman who has filled his heart and given him hope and soothed his sorrows and made him joyful, one day they will die, too. Selfishly he hopes he will go first. But in the meantime, they will have each other, and he cannot imagine wanting or needing more.

He will not journey alone into the unknown country. She will be with him.

 _She is my anchor now_.


End file.
